journal.novachild.com: Lawrence Miles Reviews Unquiet Dead

Lawrence Miles Reviews Unquiet Dead
4/11/2005

Sheesh. This guy needs to find a way to relieve himself before he explodes!

If there's anything I've noticed about Miles, it's that his aggressive single-mindedness is about as intense as his imagination. Then again, I've met more than a few writers who act like this, which is why they tend to drink heavily and avoid making public appearances. To the benefit of us all, I think.

Perhaps it takes this level of passive-aggression to fuel the need to write long novels? I don't know.

I loved Interference; it's perhaps my favorite story in the entire run of Doctor Who novels (and so I decided to stop reading them at that point). But the Lawrence Miles I've read in interviews and reviews tends to be OTT, occasionally tactless and single-minded. In the case of his review of The Unquiet Dead, episode 3 of the new DW series, he's fairly busy trying to cover all of the bases to support his rather narrow opinion of the story.

I admire enthusiasm and energy, sometimes even when I don't agree with it. It's engaging to be in a heated discussion, as long as nobody hits anybody or pulls a weapon out. But Miles goes way over the top in basically accusing the new DW team of promoting a right-wing, quazi-fascist agenda - spoon feeding it to the kids. All that from a 45-minute episode of Doctor Who!

Some people should just settle down, really. Repeat to yourself "It's just a show. I should really just relax."

Reading LM's stories is often like an acid trip gone horribly wrong. One can feel the tightening of the neck muscles, feel the little shadows stirring up behind the eyes and that firey sensation in the stomach. Reading Faction Paradox-related material is like shoving one's brain through a meat grinder and enjoying it. t's deliciously self-indulgent and nerveracking, borderlining on Clive Barker territory but taking it further into realms only touched by Jeff Noon and inhabited by various cyberpunk writers. I enjoy his writing. But it doesn't excuse him in the case of this review.

That said, I universally LOATHE Mark Gatiss's writing, with the exception of Night Shade and perhaps this episode of Doctor Who (though it's fairly unoriginal territory in my opinion). Which makes it quite odd that I would be criticizing LM's opinion of a Gatiss script.

I can relate to his fury and passion. But I think he reads wayyyyy too much into Unquiet Dead. His review is so matter-of-factly, bent on proving itself as the only way to interpret events.

"The Unquiet Dead" is a story, made at a point in time when the big electoral issue is whether the British should put up with foreigners at all or treat them like scrounging gypsies, about a bunch of REFUGEES - about a bunch of ASYLUM-SEEKERS - who ask the Doctor for his help and then turn out to be EVIL ALIENS WHO JUST WANT TO SWARM YOUR COUNTRY NYHAH HAH HAAAAAH WE WILL RAPE YOUR WOMEN AND DEFILE YOUR CORPSES.

Yes, but in the beginning, the Doctor accepts their story, in due part because of his heavy burden of 'guilt' in relation to the "Time War" that keeps popping up. Or at least that's my take on it. Which leads to the idea that the 'evil aliens' in this story are aware of the Doctor's sensitivity and planned on using it to their advantage from the very beginning. Then never WERE asylum-seekers to begin with; they were simply decieving the Doctor. One can interpret this as allegory all day long, but in the end it's just another run-of-the-mill alien possession story. Nothing spectacular.

When he tells her that she's got to stop thinking as if her customs are automatically the right and proper ones, it's one of the most admirable moments in modern television. And then it turns out that Rose was right all along, because the aliens are really body-snatching wogs who deserve to be blown up.

What was important about that scene was in showing his honest-to-goodness sensitivity, his morality, regardless of circumstance. So what if the aliens turn out to be evil and want to take over the earth (like that's anything new in Doctor Who)? The important thing is that the Doctor gives them the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't automatically assume that they are malicious, like Rose does. This happens to be something Rose will need to learn from him if she intends to keep travelling in the TARDIS.

And to talk about how effing stupid the aliens are: It was only their silly, premature decision to start gloating over their apparent success that defeats them. "I have you now, Doctor." That sort of mentality. Give me an eye-rolling break!

I really don't know much about the politics of Britain right now. I'm too focused on my own country. But I hardly see an episode of Doctor Who as a right-wing fascist threat to the television audience, and I just don't see how the episode adds up to the frightening thing that LM wants it to be. I'm almost convinced that he's inventing a crisis to vent some rage at a writer he just doesn't like. But that's just a speculation. And I don't pretend to know the intent of either writer. It just seems foolish to give a single episode so much negative power over one's opinion of the writers and producers.

Not that any of you actually give a shit about ANY of this.

posted by Edward Svengali @ Monday, April 11, 2005,

3 Comments:

At 2:08 PM, Anonymous said...: You have to realise that Lawrence is actually mental. No, really.

He is very inventive, but people take hime too seriously. He is very insular, uneducated, and paranoid.

Oh, and if you've read any of his "countdown" thingies you may detect a hint of racism running through them. So maybe he is protesting too much at Gatiss.

Mind you, I think he may well have a point, it's just that he batters and screams and throws tantrums when he is making those points.

Loz really is an unearthly child.
At 5:24 PM, Andy said...: I know that posting a reply this length of time after the post is a bit pointless, but...

I would like to just say that the other comment on this post is frankly a rather cowardly thing to post anonymously. If you want to call Lawrence mental, uneducated, racist, etc. then you might at least put your name to these comments.

Also: Loz was, according to the subsequent update to the interview he posted, suffering from clinical depression. That doesn't mean his critical faculties are in any way impaired, and indeed I would argue that he was entirely correct about there being a frankly not very Doctor Who message in The Unquiet Dead. His mental condition may have made him overreact, see excessive significance in it, whatever. But he's right about the actual issue. The personal comments about Gatiss were removed very shortly after he posted, mere hours after the story went out. When the rabid backlash from fandom fell on him nonetheless, he retracted the whole thing. Personally, I think that's the sadder part of the whole affair.
At 12:51 AM, Anonymous said...: miles's review is utter tripe its a tv show he should stick being a writer not a critic